By Grace Crook

All through my adolescence, female bodies have been going in and out of style. One day it’s cool to have thick thighs; another day it’s embarrassing. One day being ‘thick’ is all the rage, and women obsess over gaining weight. Another day, women and girls kill themselves to be slim. One month it’s trendy to have curly hair; another it’s silky straight that's in. Big boobs are embarrassing and saggy, until suddenly they’re not.

I distinctly remember the point in time where myself and my friends became exhilarated because our bodies were ‘in trend’. Our large, jiggly thighs had once caused us shame, and we were encouraged to cover them up. Now? No problem, show them off! 

Instead of being held to the rigid, skinny-exalting standards of the mid-and-late 2000s, we were perfectly on-trend in this new era of Kim Kardashian ass. The tables had turned: now, those who were fortunate enough to not develop an eating disorder to fit in with 2000s beauty are mocked, incorrectly labelled ‘anorexic’, seen as undesirable and ‘flat’. 

All women fall victim to these changing trends, and many feel powerless against them. While it is fairly easy to give up items of clothing that are no longer ‘in’, our bodies are far, far harder to give up or throw away.

This type of body trending isn’t a worry for men. Over the years, the male body ideal has remained at one constant standard. Tall, stocky. Muscly. It’s been this way since biblical times. Evolutionarily, it makes perfect sense. This is stagnant; it doesn’t change. Boys, unlike girls, don’t have to frantically search up new diets or exercises to change their natural body features because society and social media has suddenly devalued them.

For women, everything about us is a trend. We are a commodity. We’ve never been the consumers, just the product. We go in and out of style just like clothes or objects would, with our male consumers choosing who to give the temporary power to. With the temporary power of being attractive or desired, we feel narcotised with that power. We feel exuberant. We mean something again! We’re sexy! 

Often, we may even blindly feed into the male ideals. The power of being on top makes us feel superior to other women who have been deprived of their worth. We walk around, with a renewed sense of confidence resulting from finally conforming to the male gaze, shunning the women who don’t fit the criteria of that month, knowing or not knowing that the tables will turn once more, and that it will be us again soon being shunned. 

Exploring social media, it won’t be long before you come across big pages debating and criticising women’s body parts in crude, insensitive bids to see who prefers breasts or ass. Magazines type out articles on how thighs are ‘in’ this season as if we’re fur coats or jewellery, and post polls on what type of breast size men prefer. 

Female editors at magazines perpetuate this while being oppressed, for they are subject to these very standards. It is well observed that people who are oppressed often fight each other. Like rats stuck in a bucket, they rip each other to pieces, hoping that it’ll get them out. But they neglect to see and attack the hands that put them there.

Anything that can please or pleasure men is something that will be vastly sexualised. Even lesbian and bisexual women are treated as a luxury, something to find sexy, although they have limited interest in men. Gay men are the only thing that straight men can’t monopolise, exploit, or gain pleasure from, so they’re shunned, abused, bullied, and attacked. One of the most twisted things about being sexualised while oppressed is it gives the illusion that you’re not oppressed because you’re put on a pedestal. However, being lusted after, fetishised or sexualised is not the same as being respected. 

It is time to take a stand against this insidious way of viewing women and their bodies. All bodies are beautiful, and the most important thing is that we love ourselves. If we love ourselves and don’t care about what men think, we take away their power over our self-image and self-esteem.

We all deserve to be respected, regardless of what we look like.